Is the Missouri Senate on the Verge of an Historic Legislative Failure?

For Missouri, 2016's state elections were doubly-significant. Not only did Missourians return supermajorities of Republicans to both the state House and state Senate; they also installed a Republican governor -- taking away the last true impediment to significant legislative reform for conservative policymakers. Indeed, after eight years of thwarted conservative policies, Republicans finally had an open legislative field to run through.

At least, that's what observers assumed. At the midway point of this year's session, Missouri's legislative field remains wide open, but so far the state Senate has chosen not to sprint across it.

Since the beginning of the 2017 session, the state Senate has passed only a handful of substantive bills. The House and Senate did pass much-needed and long-sought Right to Work legislation. But as of this writing, it appears that legislation may not come into effect until at least 2018, thanks to a union-led referendum effort. The Senate may have to actually pass Right to Work again in a modified form if it is going to become effective before that time. The Senate has also notably voted to deny themselves a pay increase and passed a number of consent items -- uncontroversial bills that had no real opposition from Senators, and were often just technical corrections to existing laws.

But if all you knew was that the Senate had been bedeviled by gridlock so far this year, you might never have guessed that over two-thirds of the chamber is occupied by the conservative party.

Why the Senate has given the keys to their agenda to a liberal superminority is not clear. The Senate has allowed the minority party to filibuster, at length and without realistic consequence, legislative reform after legislative reform -- killing some legislation and, in the process, slowly closing the window within which other bills have to be passed before the session ends in May.

And to be clear, lots of legislative changes ought to have become law this year. Ethics reform. Tax reform. Education reform. Government union reform. Certificate of Need reform. Licensing reform. Public construction reform. Tax credit reform.

The list of legislative priorities that should have been enacted by session's end goes on and on, and yet the Senate majority's role in the process has mainly been to sit on each reform long enough to allow the superminority to methodically suffocate it, week after week.

How many priorities will actually become law this year? The answer is anyone's guess.

Some Senators have explained the delays by positing that it's a Senate tradition to proceed slowly and entertain the filibuster at length. But could the reason be as simple as it's actually the superminority that runs the Senate? While I disagree with liberals vehemently on most issues, they know what they want to do and have been doing it in the Missouri Senate all year.

And frankly, what would compel the superminority to stop a strategy of obstruction that's worked so well for them and, barring reasonable changes to Senate rules, will continue to work for them?

Does the majority not want to govern? It seems like power over the Senate has been handed to Missouri liberals to manage as they will. Why?

The Senate supermajority has the opportunity to make history through the passage of far-reaching, pro-growth, pro-people reforms -- an opportunity delivered to them thanks to significant electoral support in the state for a conservative governing agenda. Instead, the Senate majority seems on track to make history through its startling and inexplicable failure to act like a governing party that holds over two-thirds of the chamber. It's astounding.

Will the Senate majority wake up and deliver on these items before it's too late? One can hope, but time is running out.